More Good News Regarding Northwest Wildfires

The wildfire season in the Pacific Northwest is rapidly approaching the endgame, with huge declines during the past month.

To illustrate the profound change, consider the satellite-based wildfire observations for today versus one month ago (below).

Today,  there are only a handful of hot spots on the northeast side of the Cascades.  No apparent fires in Oregon.

A month ago, it was a different story with numerous and massive fires (mainly the result of lightning) in both states.

Air quality is good through most of the region today, with some very localized degradation near some of the smoldering fires.

A sharp drought of low pressure will move through over the weekend, mainly to the south of Washington.  

As a result, southern Washington State and Oregon will see substantial precipitation (see totals through Monday morning below).   Bad for fires.

And temperatures should be cooler than normal from Friday to next Wednesday (see below), which should help suppress fires as well.

Pretty confident that this is the endgame for Washington/Oregon fires this year.

In a future blog, I will make the case that 2026 was predominantly a grass/range wildfire year in the Northwest.  The quote on AI source:

In Oregon—which surpassed historical records with over 2.3 million acres burned—short grass and dry brush served as the primary fuel source for roughly 1.8 million of those acres

And something else.  This is turning into a very attenuated wildfire year for California, with this year possessing less than half of the average over the past five years (see below).  That could change, of course.